Rookie Deck
by Aiko Isari
Summary: [02/Tamers] Ruki had just been thinking of brushing up her deck for a possible tournament. She didn't know it would pull her into another save the world deal or the life of one of her friends. For Onixflame the Blue.
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter 1: The Goggleheads_

Makino Ruki rarely frequented the card shops, or at least the mainstream chain ones. Though they had the flashiest cards, the easiest to obtain, even some rare ones if you just kept buying, they never held her interest after Renamon. You didn't need flashy cards to kill an ogre, just a few well placed power ups and counters.

No, her interest usually lay in the obscure little card shops, in the rare finds and battered boxes. They also paid her less attention. She was the Digimon Queen; she had all the attention she could ever need. Therefore, since these places got little notice, so did she by being there. They usually had little kids who didn't know or care about the tournaments yet, so they wouldn't know her title, or collectors too busy to care. Much quieter that way.

She cycled through the booster packs with her fingers, eyes thoughtful. She hadn't changed her deck in a long while. Not since Renamon had appeared to her, promising her power and glory and an ultimate partnership. Back then, they hadn't been equals, at least, not in mind. They probably were now. It was kind of hard not to be, with the whole 'combining into one ultimate Digimon' thing. After the D-Reaper, they were probably even closer than that.

Hirokazu would make something of that. Urgh. Thinking about him made her head ache.

She turned her brain away from him, entering the building with the sound of a jingling bell. The shopkeeper greeted her casually, like he hadn't seen her and her friends on live television during the almost death of the entirety of Tokyo and potentially the world almost a year ago. It had been that long and still, no sign of Renamon coming back.

Takato, gogglehead and good friend extraordinaire, had of course tried to find them, tried to bring them back (She wasn't sentimental enough to call Earth their home, though it was pretty likely that was what home was for them, since they worked so hard to come there in the first place.). It had failed for mostly metaphysical reasons. Real life was not always full of miracles, as she knew very well. It didn't mean it was impossible.

She flicked her fingers through the packs once more. It was a good thing that she wasn't an avid collector. Imagine trying to find all the editions of one pack. She snorted at the thought. Not even _Ryo_ was that overprepared. Tamers that would try to carry four or five decks were probably more of a personal hazard than a real help, unfortunately. Though that only would have mattered if Digimon were still around.

And they weren't.

The bell clanged and Ruki barely flicked her eyes up to see the new customer. She caught a flicker of messy brown spikes and looked down. They were too tall to be Hirokazu or Takato, and she hardly saw Ryo buying cards these days, so there wasn't much chance of being hailed while looking at them. She picked up a third pack, trying to remember the trick Jen had mentioned about being able to peek at the contents of the awkward packaging. Not that he should know how to do this, he was a good guy after all.

"Uh… 'scuse me?"

The voice was close to her ear. Ruki looked up, tugging on her ponytail and tucking the third pack of cards in her other hand. "Yeah? Am I in your way?" Whoops, that had come off a little strong, hadn't it? Oh well. Looking him over, she saw the spikes of hair. That guy who had just come in then. She hoped he hadn't recognized her and was planning to bombard her with fan noises or something. Seriously just because you were the Digimon Queen didn't mean you liked that sort of thing.

"Nah, nah." The boy waved a flippant hand. "I just saw you looking super hard at those packs. I figured you would know what kind of starter deck to get."

Ruki raised an eyebrow. That was kind of simpleminded, and optimistic. Well, to be fair, it wasn't wrong. She _could_ figure out what kind of deck he would make and what to buy. "Depends," she finally hedged, discomfort prickling the back of her neck. She still wasn't good at talking with strangers and people in general. Heck, she was still losing the awkward words with her mom. "What kind of fighter are you?"

He blinked at her, kind of like he was saying, 'It's not obvious?'. Well, that was a challenge if she'd ever heard one. "I like facing stuff head on and charging in."

"It's not that he likes it." Someone behind him said with a deadpan laugh. "It's just his way of doing things."

The other boy turned red behind the ears. "Ken!"

Something about that name, and their voices, struck a cord. Ruki dismissed it and narrowed her eyes. "You'd probably need a few dragons, and some support skills. A lot of powerful Digimon attacks would be useless after a while. No point in having them if you run out of points first."

The two boys looked at each other. "Huh." The first laughed. "I was thinking I'd get an army."

"You would hate that," the other boy said, examining a blue Digimon toy.

Ruki let out a snort before she oculd stop herself. She went to one of the shelves and pulled off a red Digimon toy, similar in looks to the one that Takato had had once before.

(Before it broke, but no one really liked to think of that.)

The Digimon toy had, not too surprisingly, grown all over again in popularity after the kids had been found using them to save the world. Everyone wanted to be a Tamer now. Everyone was mostly failing. Maybe that would change. But not now.

That uneasy feeling continued as she handed the plastic to him. "Here. This'll work for you."

The boy took it. "Huh. Nice toy."

"They can take a beating." It was half a joke, half true. She'd seen her D-Arc take more punches than anyone, even Guilmon the Indestructible.

"It should," the other boy said with an appraising eye. "For that price."

Ruki chortled before she could stop herself and went to pay for her cards. As she moved aside and went to open her pack, the bell over the door clanged again. Instead of a person though, in came a little blue dragon and an even smaller green caterpillar. "Daisuke," whined the dragon. "Are you done yet? We've gotta find those kids!"

"And he's hungry," supplied the caterpillar, both creatures oblivious to Ruki's blood running cold at the sight of them, at the sight of _Digimon_.

'Daisuke' groaned. "V-mon, you're worse than me!"

As if on cue, his stomach growled.

Ruki felt sick as the other boy-when had he gotten there, he had not been there five minutes ago- laughed. "We did just universe-travel. It takes a lot out of us."

"Yeah, Ken, you warned me." Daisuke grinned sheepishly and looked over at Ruki. "Scuse me again. Thanks for your help, but I've got one more question: do you know where any of those so called… Tamers are? Ken and I are supposed to be looking for them." He paused. "I didn't introduce myself, did I?" He straightened his goggles over his head, something she had _just noticed_ again, what was up with today? "I'm Motomiya Daisuke, and that's V-mon over there with Wormmon. And this is Ichijouji Ken. Don't worry, he's a nice guy." He paused. "So, uh, do you know any of them Tamers?"

Ruki shifted and plunged her hand into one pocket. She pulled out her D-Arc and managed to deadpan. "You're looking at one."

* * *

 ** _A/N:_ ** Hello! Oh look, keeling over, don't mind me! Hey Onix, I did it! We did it! Please let me know how my Ruki is. I tried to balance her between snark and not-snark. Dunno which won out. Lemme know how you feel everybody!

Challenges: Diversity Writing I19. a multichap with chapters between 1000-2000 words, Pairing Diversity Boot Camp prompt 37. relation, and Advent Calendar 2014 day 11.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thanks for waiting for this update, guys!_

* * *

 **Chapter Two: The Heroes**

Now, Ruki prided herself on being _smart_. She was a strategist. She was, once she calmed down, able to keep cool, and aware of her surroundings. Thus, it was only natural for her to not squeal like an idiot (or worse, a Takato) at the realization that those anime characters she had seen on tv for ages were actually real. Or at least two of them were. It wasn't much of a stretch for all of them to be, in her imagination. So her entire world has just been flipped over.

So, the reaction of almost dropping her cards after paying for them and running out the door to scream for every bystander to hear seemed perfectly fine, right? Of course she didn't actually do that, but still. She came very, very close. Was this what Takato had felt like when he first found Guilmon?

Motomiya Daisuke, (seriously the others were going to flip out, Kenta would probably faint), for his part, looked surprised for a few seconds before his big grin widened even more. "Man, Ken, am I good or what?"

Ken smiled a little, but Ruki could tell from here it was to contain laughter. "Yes, Daisuke-kun, you are the best there is."

"Oh come on, don't go that far.. You'll make me blush!" He turned back to her to prove that yes, she still had his attention. Then he went to pay for his cards. "So you're one of the people who saved this place, huh? Who are you? We didn't get many details before being told to fly like our little tails depended on it!" The redhead just stared even more, which was, well, slightly uncomfortable. But he could deal. he'd had worse staring him in the face before. And worse trying to kill him. Lucky him that she wasn't trying to do that yet.

She broke out of her stupor at the mention of it. "Makino Ruki. My friends and I worked together on all of that. It wasn't just me." Boy was it nice to say that and mean it. Daisuke beamed at her to destroy any potential awkwardness (really, Ken was enough!).

"Awesome! It must have been real tough, huh?"

His voice made the obvious seem well, extraordinary. Ruki looked away from him as he counted slips from his wallet. It was almost like Takato in this endearing 'no, _really_ ' sort of way. Of course it had been hard. They'd had to fight all sorts of creatures, some not even Digimon, and in the end, their partners had had to go home. There had been an unknown number of casualties and everything. Daisuke and his friends got to stay with their partners in the end, to a point. It wasn't the same thing.

But he still took whatever tribulations they were going through pretty seriously.

 _It's probably because he's an earnest kind of guy,_ Ruki thought, forcing herself to look at her new cards. _Maybe it's some kind of disease from the plastic in goggles._

… _Man that was a dumb thought. I need new friends._

"Something like that," she finally said, sounding out the words before she realized it.

Daisuke frowned at her. "What kind of wishy-washy answer is that?"

Her eye twitched. "What."

Ken let out a sigh.

"Daisuke's kinda hopeless, huh?" V-mon commented, ignorant to the stares of passing people.

Wormmon tried very hard not to roll his eyes.

* * *

Being back in the human world, even if it was a different world than his home, made Ryo very claustrophobic.

What memories he had of the old digital world were rich and expansive and the new one, though in smaller zones, had stretched far and wide, beyond his eyes. Never beyond Cyberdramon's snout, of course not. Tat would be insulting, but it was enough distance to let his partner roam and only occasionally lose his mind to battle.

It was all so peaceful… and dull.

He could never admit this out loud, of course. That was ungrateful. They all had to miss it though, the fun, and the glory and the fighting. Ryo wasn't entirely sure he missed it exactly (fights were surprisingly easy to come by in this world.) but the lack of it drove his mind into a frenzy of a constant prickling at the back of his neck. Only Cyberdramon had been more aware than his own instincts and lacking it, even as his friendly Monodramon self. It was getting to be a little ridiculous.

He couldn't even sleep at night anymore. He was _eleven_ , not fifty-three. He didn't need insomnia on top of everything else.

 _You could always see a doctor,_ his head reminded him in its usual cheerful sarcasm. A doctor? More like four, if one was also a hacker as a side-hobby. Maybe he could see Shibumi…

No wait that guy kept himself in a self-medicated coma to spirit travel to the digital world, there was no reason to ever trust him. Nope. Nada. Zilch.

… Maybe he could take up boxing.

He rolled his eyes at himself. Did he have to be this obviously out of his mind? It was bad for the friends he rarely ever hung out with.

Ryo laughed at himself and started to walk a bit faster. The sooner he got home, the sooner he could take a nice nap in front of his fan and get rid of these stupid, useless thoughts. That sounded real nice.

Then… just to ruin that very nice thought, a chill went down his back. It was his usual warning signal for 'hey buddy, your carefree life is over!' so of course he listened to it. It was hardly ever wrong. Ryo stopped walking and turned around. The playful smart remark died in his throat as he took a look at who was looking at him. Lanky in body, blue hair that fell at his ears, not bunched up like a messy chew toy. The same eyes, these a little rounder. Less of the chubby baby fat. No expression contorted with pain. Just a wary, curious frown that was shifting too fast into a smile of relief.

"Ken…?" He managed to say, not even attempting to look at Ruki behind him, or the other boy next to her. They were so busy arguing that they weren't even paying attention to the look on his face.

Ken smiled a little wider, expression sheepish. "Hi, Ryo-san. I, uh, we need your help again."

Of _course they did._


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three: The Personal**

"It's complicated," had been the only thing Ruki, nay, anyone could get out of Ryo before he had practically flown off with Ichijouji Ken under one arm. Ken had waved awkwardly at Daisuke as they passed, Wormmon hopping after them as quickly as he could.

Daisuke looked puzzled but shrugged it away. "Taichi-san warned me that that was coming." He smiled easily like he had all the answers and positively knew the best outcome of every single one. It was almost like Takato, except less excited at the moment. Which was, in its own way, bizarre. "Some past stuff that I wasn't involved in, I guess and no one's really wanted to talk about it. So, while that's happening, I guess I'll talk to you and your pals about why we're here! Sound good?"

Not particularly, but she wasn't going to tell _him_ that. Not considering she had no idea what he was here for or about. All she knew was that he wasn't a hallucination. Which was fine by her really. She did have questions. Like, was the tv show real or a lie? Was that happy ending really possible for everyone? Could Digimon and humans actually live together for real or was that just a pipe dream they made up to feel better about watching a man die?

She wanted to know. Was it like Juri losing her precious friend, her family? Was it like her waking up one morning and her father is gone?

None of those questions were appropriate to ask but she wanted the answers anyway.

Instead, Ruki had pressed her lips together and nodded.

Daisuke beamed at her like she held the sun n her hands. "Great! Let's find a good meeting place before V-mon gets us an angry mob."

* * *

Of course, it's where Gogglehead number 2 kept Guilmon every day (how did no one think to come to check this place ever since Digimon started appearing, did no one care, were they paid off, what even happened? The older Ruki got the less she understood.

Of course, everyone else was there, and Takato was almost vaulting himself across the dirt path. He restrained himself, however, because his two minions were already there, Hirokazu screeching in Daisuke's face about something or other. Probably how much of an honor it was, how pleased he was to meet him and how amazing he was, that sounded about right for the knuckleheads.

Eventually, somewhat gently she assumed, V-mon hauled both boys off with a hand each, leaving her standing awkwardly beside the boy like she hadn't thought of doing the same thing not too long ago. But then again she also had some god damn dignity.

Jenrya cleared his throat to stop the rush of noise and babbling. Juri sat on a rock, fascinated and solemn-eyed. Shaochun, Ai, and Makoto were about as interested as little kids got, so they were on the playground.

"Anyone called Yamaki?" Ruki figured she had to be the one to ask because she sure hadn't.

Jenrya nodded. Good. "He'll be here with… with my dad in a little while. Said he wanted us to hear it out first. Whatever reason you're here."

Ruki turned to Daisuke, who was standing there with the kind of grin on his face that Ruki could only describe as shit-eating.

"We ready to get started?" he asked, and he looked at Ruki first, then at Takato. "We're all right on time but… figure there's no point in waiting right?"

Takato instantly sobered and nodded, fiddling with his cards and deliberately not touching the goggles on his head. "Right! You're not an anime character! So why are you here? And how are you here?"

"Same way that Ryo guy's here!" Daisuke patted V-mon's head as he spoke. Then he frowned. "Least I think so. Ken would know more about the mathematical knowing and stuff. Or Koushiro-senpai. But they sent us here because we have a lot of ground to cover."

Ruki almost heard Hirokazu keel over and resisted the urge to kick him in the shin. It was a difficult thing but she applauded herself for it. "For what?" she sat down with an ungraceful movement. "No offense but my life has not been made from the existence of you being confirmed, no offense."

"Ruki?" Takato hissed, red eyes going wide.

Daisuke laughed, _hard_ , at that. "Oh man, Miyako would like you. Anyway, why we're here! Yep." He sobered, lips twisting into a frown so fast it was practically whiplash. "There is a Digimon threatening multiple, parallel worlds, and some guy called the clockmaker is trying to stop it from spreading past its own world set. Which… it's failing at. He called us right after we'd dealt with it, and that was only a teaser. Or something." He scratched his head. "The guy said he'll be here in a day or so, but we at least needed to warn you in case it beat us here."

All of them looked at each other, Juri's solemn frown falling further, brows knitting with discomfort. Ruki swallowed, anger and guilt and pain welling up like ugly welts from falling off the monkey bars.

"Just one problem with that, short stack," she said, relishing in the extra centimeters she had had over him when standing up. "We don't have our Digimon anymore. Even if we wanted to do anything, we're pretty much sunk."

Daisuke only smiled in the face of her gradually rising ire. "I got that covered. We just need your resident brains here." He paused and looked at Jenrya. "Gonna guess that's you right?"

Takato bobbed his head eagerly before Jenrya could even open up his mouth. "He keeps up with his father and the other scientists."

Jenrya's face darkened with embarrassment, eyes lilting down to study the now fascinating off-white color of his shoelaces. "Well… I'm not an expert, but I can try and break it down."

Daisuke's grin widened. "Great, cause I have no idea!" Everyone couldn't help but notice the sweat dripping down the back of their necks when he said that. Daisuke didn't even seem to care either. "Anyway, before that, is there a gate near here? A hole? Something like that?"

Takato practically glowed. "Yeah! In here!" And he turned and ran into Guilmon's hideout.

Daisuke glanced at Ruki. "Could use some of that enthusiasm?"

"I keep him around for it so I don't have to," she shot back.

Another wild laugh. "Pretty sure that's what Ken, Iori, and Hikari-chan do for me anyway. it's a good trade-off."

"Do you get the strategy from them?"

Daisuke only laughed harder. "You've got jokes, Makino."

Ruki squinted at him. "The hell's that supposed to mean?"

She didn't get a response, because V-mon had bounded after Daisuke and yelled so loud it had echoed across the pavement. Daisuke didn't hesitate to bolt after him.

Ruki shared a look with Jenrya.

 _Goggleheads._ Same in every universe.


End file.
